


Interlude X

by AnnetheCatDetective



Series: Interludes [10]
Category: Murdoch Mysteries
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23685049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: In my Interludes doc, this one is titled 'Crying in the Club'.Some dialogue from AIOS.
Relationships: Jack Walker/Llewellyn Watts
Series: Interludes [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1679167
Comments: 22
Kudos: 37





	Interlude X

Talking Llewellyn into going out to celebrate hadn’t been difficult, despite his initial protests-- bashful over being recognized, even though Jack gets the feeling that he craves it, too. And he deserves it… he’s so clever, and he works so hard, and he blossoms under the faintest praise like he’s never had enough in his life.

He’d be a good inspector, somewhere down the line… fifteen years, twenty, when he’s ready to slow down his pace and spend more time behind a desk. He’s anxious still, about the idea of it, but he’s capable, clearly he has been capable. He would be able to choose to devote his focus to the more challenging cases, and to delegate the rest. Assess the strengths of the people under him to make the right choices, which he must have displayed a knack for so far, despite his belief that he’s not suited to it. 

He’s suited for so much, he just needs to be able to see himself in a leadership position. And… he doesn’t like desk work, he prefers to be out and on the move, but Jack knows he’s more capable than he thinks he is of handling it-- after all, doesn’t he sit quietly, doing barely anything at all, when he’s home with Jack, a fire and a full stomach and a hand in his hair. He could learn to carry that sense of calm with him. He could learn to work behind a desk, in time. He could learn to trust himself as much as others trust him. 

And now here he is, watching Llewellyn suck the foam from his upper lip, going between tearing his way through a meat pie and drinking deep from his beer, and he… wants him. He wants him, he wants to take him home, and it’s not safe, but it’s never safe. He’s going to take him home tonight. They have plans, they need tonight. They have so much to celebrate, they have so little time to do it in, and Llewellyn…

He’s beautiful. Here, in the dim light, one hand waving as he tries to explain between bites some principle he’s read about, and Jack doesn’t understand it at all but he laughs, because Llewellyn does, because he doesn’t need to understand everything, yet. Because later, Llewellyn will lend him the book he’d been reading, and he’ll catch up. Or he won’t, and it will be all right, because he understands enough things, enough subjects.

And he’s beautiful, taking another bite after making his point, and humming around it as if it was his first and not one or two from his last, the slight flutter of his lashes, and if he was anyone else, knowing what he knows about what Jack likes, he’d think it was put on, just a little… but it’s Llewellyn, and he doesn’t put anything on. 

And he enjoys things. Thoroughly.

“Llew.” Jack bites his lip, taps his foot against Llewellyn’s just briefly, under the table, so that he has his full attention, his eyes wide, the little hum of a question. “You know. That’s all.”

“Oh.” He smiles, nods, takes a quick sip from his beer. “Yes. I mean-- you know. I mean-- now?”

“All the time.” Jack laughs, motioning to the corner of his mouth. “And you have a little gravy. And… now.”

There’s no shorthand for the rest of what he feels, and what he wants to say. He can say that of course he loves him, but not how badly he’d like to be on the other side of the table, sitting in his lap and feeding him bites, running his fingers through his hair, or being the one to swipe at little smears of gravy with a thumb, and to push his thumb past Llewellyn’s lips. There’s no little code phrase to tell him how much he wants to hold him close, to nuzzle along his jaw. To revel in him, just as he is now. To delight in his raw masculinity and his unselfconsciousness and his sweetness and his shyness, and love him as a creature of contradictions. The tiger and the lamb.

Perhaps, when they make their way home, he can begin to express it all. He doesn’t think he ever quite gets it right, there’s something enormous he keeps approaching, when they’re together, which the words won’t fit around. But he also thinks he says enough, that Llewellyn can understand his feelings.

Perhaps love, real love, is a feeling which words won’t contain, and the act of loving is the act of seeking impossible words for the rest of your life, to let your beloved know his worth. And when the words fall short, as they always seem to, then you are left with the pure communion of souls, and the pure communion of bodies-- for there is purity, in Llewellyn’s body, in feeling it in rhythm with his own, in giving the gift of pleasure to each other. He’s never felt so clean as with him, loving him. 

Whatever sins he has been guilty of, there have been a few. He has not always been as temperate or as kind as he might like. He has not always been honest, with the people he has loved. He has not always made wise decisions, for himself and for his heart and where it concerns his relationships. He has committed himself to being a better man in his future than he was in his past, but he knows what his sins have been. He knows this is not one.

And tonight… all he wants is to have Llewellyn to himself after a nice celebratory meal out, to hold him close and say the things he hasn’t been able to. But, there are things they can talk about-- things they’ve been reading outside of book club, and work. And the question that still bothers Jack a little, that he could ever stand in the way of Llewellyn’s career.

“Would you really turn down a promotion, if it was offered to you?” He asks, and he can’t ask as plainly as he wants, about whether this was a choice Llewellyn could ever come to regret, or resent him over, but… Llewellyn is like him, he takes pride in his work and it means a lot to him. His career is so much of his life and who he is. The last thing he wants is to ever get in the way. “Just-- to not spend the time apart?”

Llewellyn blinks at him, confusion and then a sort of resignation-- though he doesn’t seem bitter about it.

“Yes. I-- it wouldn’t come to me anyway, if it came before… anyone but the Inspector. For reasons enough without worrying about that one, I’d never be put through. So… why torture myself? Why go through the process, why… why spend a week, a month, away from my home? What for?”

“Llew… I-- You think… it could be a month?” His brow furrows. He knew there would be people looking into his suitability, but he hadn’t realized how long it could take. “That you’d have to be away from home?”

To not be able to bring him home for a month… to not be able to hold him all night, or even to cook him dinner. It would be hard, it would be a strain perhaps… it would be painful, when they already have to live so carefully. But Jack would accept it gladly knowing the reason behind it. He wishes he’d moderated his tone a little more, he knows it’s in Llewellyn’s nature to give of himself too much, to give up too much. To put everyone else before himself. He won’t let him give this up-- defer it, yes, wait until he’s grown into it before he considers it more fully, but not discount it completely, just for him.

“It could be. Likely not, they’d find enough reason to discount me before then, but-- the time I spend away is already too much. I didn’t think I would get used to feeling like I belonged somewhere. Now I do. I don’t want to jeopardize that for anything.”

“A room in a boarding house-- even a nice one-- isn’t much home to give up any hope of advancement for.” He says, more evenly. His place is cozy, and it’s cozier when they’re sharing it, but they can both strive for more in the future, and if there’s a chance of something better, he’ll be happy to share in Llewellyn’s success even if it means a little sacrifice along the way. 

Maybe… maybe a house. It’s crazy, he knows it’s crazy, but someplace discreet, no too-close neighbors peeking in on them. If he grows his business and Llewellyn is promoted, a little place a bit further out from the heart of the city, maybe even a bit in the countryside like the neighborhood he’d grown up in, and an automobile to get to work, whoever learned to drive it could drop the other off and then they’d meet at the shop at the end of the day, at least most days. If Llewellyn had to work late on a case he could call. Wouldn’t it be worth it, a month apart, if they could make themselves a real home somewhere down the road?

“No. It’s not.” Llewellyn agrees, looking down at his plate. “But my home isn’t a room in a boarding house. It’s a horizon.”

_Oh_.

Jack needs a minute, needs to be anywhere else. He’d thought-- why wouldn’t he think?-- that Llewellyn meant home with him, his rooms, the little cozy routines they’ve built there, the nights they’ve spent, the effort Jack has put into making his place a home to them both. He hadn’t even considered… he hadn’t even considered Llewellyn could mean just him.

He has to clap a hand over his mouth, over the watery gasp, and his eyes sting, and Llewellyn sits across from him staring resolutely downwards, that bashful and boyish look which doesn’t help Jack feel any less affected. The version of himself that shines through when he isn’t pretending to be unassailable, when he isn’t forcing himself to be only the strongest version of himself, out in the world. 

His _home_. That it’s not the comforts of his room, but _him_ , he’s what makes Llewellyn feel… all the things a home should make a man feel. Safe and comfortable. Like there’s someplace you belong. And he’s that, the place where Llewellyn belongs. _Llewellyn_! A man so lost in the world, so unwilling to ask for the love he deserves, to be able to be home to him, to read him right and give him what he needs. He could _weep_. He just might.

“Llewellyn Watts, what ever made you think you could say that now, here, where I can’t possibly answer you…” He shakes his head.

“I’m sorry.” Llewellyn is quick to say, too quick, as if he thinks he’s in trouble for it. “Should I-- I’m sorry. I didn’t--”

“Don’t apologize if you meant it.” Jack says. “Just… walk me home.”

He waits for a signal, before he pays their tab for the evening-- Llewellyn reaches for his wallet, but he motions for him to put it back with a reminder that this was a dinner in his honor-- and then he collects him to go. Home… where he’s thinking less about dragging Llewellyn to bed and tearing his clothes off and more about just… holding him and never letting him go, holding him like he didn’t have to let him go.

He always has to let him go too soon. He always has to let go when all he wants is another hour, another moment, another kiss, another _breath_ with Llewellyn in his arms, in his room, in his bed, at his table. Another day where he prowls down the street side of the pavement watching out for him on their way home to where they can hold each other. 

He’d managed to hold himself together, paying the tab, pasting on the same smile he always gives customers no matter what kind of a day he’s having or what he’s thinking or how he feels about any given person. And if the man behind the bar recognizes it for a false smile, a for-the-customer’s smile, it’s only because he knows how it feels to wear one. But out on the street…

Out on the street, where Llewellyn takes up his usual position, where he steps down into the gutter when the pavement is too narrow as a matter of course… his posture more drawn up than usual, even. And Jack is his home, and when he walks beside him aware of every possible danger a night’s walk could confront them with, he is protecting his _home_ , and he’s so used to not having a proper home, to not belonging to someone, to being alone in the world and he needs Jack for this, to shelter him, to be there to come back to at the end of a long day…

No one has ever needed him so much. No one has ever called him home before. He never even knew how much he longed to be so needed and so trusted. 

“Jack--?” Llewellyn stops him, a trembling uncertainty in his voice.

He’s seen the tears, then.

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” He shakes his head, his smile tight. Perhaps too much so to be reassuring.

“Whatever I said wrong-- I don’t always-- I hardly ever--” He starts, tripping over his words, holding one hand up. “But I’d never have done it on purpose, and if you tell me what it was, then I can try not to do it again.”

“You-- _wrong_?” Jack laughs, or almost does. If he wasn’t so overwhelmed, he supposes he might have, if he wasn’t already crying. He drags Llewellyn forward, to where they’re just two darker silhouettes against an already-dark night. “You didn’t say something wrong. You just… you just gave me all I’ve ever wanted, in the middle of a pub, like it-- and I just wish… I wish things could be easier for us. I wish I lived in a world where, when a man tells me I’m home to him, however he puts it, I could kiss him. I don’t know what else to do with everything you make me feel sometimes.”

Llewellyn stops short, his hand on Jack’s arm, too gentle to stop him if he wasn’t willing to be stopped. He’d stop even without that touch, he’d stop the moment he felt Llewellyn do so. But, he thinks… Llewellyn would want to be certain. Not that he wouldn’t be left behind, he could catch up-- that Jack wouldn’t get too far ahead, unprotected, waiting for him. 

He turns to face him, he brings his handkerchief up to the tear tracks Jack can feel drying, cold, in the night air. And… of course he would. Of course the most thoughtful man Jack has ever loved and perhaps the most thoughtful man he has ever met, of course he wouldn’t let him walk home with tears running down his face. He really doesn’t know what to do, with a man this good. 

Well, be a home to him.

“All you’ve ever wanted?” Llewellyn asks him, his voice soft, hoarse with feeling.

“Just to make a home.” He nods. “For a man who thinks I’m enough. For a man who doesn’t want anyone else. Who doesn’t… who doesn’t act like I’m some housewife just because I like to take care of him, I don’t want to be a housewife, I’m a man and I have a business, and my business is important to me, but I-- just, a man who doesn’t ignore parts of me to make me fit. Just to make a home for a man who sees me and respects me, who wants what I can offer. Just to make a home for you. And… maybe, to be needed.”

“I need you.” He dabs at the tears that start spilling over yet again. “I need you. I’ve been… so tired for so long, and I didn’t know it. I didn’t know there was another way to be, until you showed me a home.”

This poor, sweet man, how the world doesn’t see what he does he doesn’t know. Yes, Llewellyn presents himself as best he can according to his position, his career. But he doesn’t… he doesn’t hide himself well, not-- Well, he does as he has to, he hides that part of himself well, but no matter how strong he makes himself day in and day out, he can’t hide the wide-eyed sweetness, the way he’s kind. So why don’t people see it in him?

And he needs Jack, to be the home to him that no one has provided in so long.

“Llew-- _please_. Save anything else you have to say, because I really can’t take it. Not out here.”

He finishes wiping at his face, first, and then he places his handkerchief in Jack’s pocket. Doesn’t fold it neatly, it bulges and it sticks out a little, and… and Jack feels suddenly proud to carry it, feels such an endearment.

Then, he moves himself back to walk at Jack’s elbow, a little taller than he ever does when he is not escorting him of an evening, and they make their way to Jack’s boarding house, to his room, to the safety of a locked door that separates them from the world at large.

“I love you.” He buries the words into Llewellyn’s shoulder, he holds him hard, he draws all the comfort in the world from Llewellyn’s arms around him and Llewellyn’s body in his arms. 

“I love you. I-- and I don’t want a housewife.” Llewellyn whispers back, nuzzles towards his ear. “I want to come by and watch you work when I miss you, when I have a break. I just… I love _you_ , Jack. I’m lucky to have you.”

“I’m lucky to have you.” Again, he almost laughs, and can’t quite, overwhelmed still by the feeling. “We-- we were lucky to find each other. You needed a home and I needed to be one, and we… we’ve both been… we know what it is not to fit. Even in queer company, to be strange… to want all the wrong things. We needed to find this. And-- Llew, I know… I know you’re considering so many things, when you say you won’t seek a promotion. I know it’s not just me… but it means something to me, that-- that I’m a part of your considerations. That you… you’d rather have me.”

“I’d rather have you than anything. I’ve thought… I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about what my life would be if I lost everything else.” He admits. 

“Oh?”

“I would… I would grieve the job I have if I lost it. And I would be ashamed to come to you with nothing. But… I would come to you, because you…” He puffs up a little, fills his mouth with air and holds it a moment before loosing one of those gusty sighs, which Jack has grown inordinately fond of over the weeks. “You could bear me through the loss. But I couldn’t bear the loss of you.”

“Then I’d better not let myself get lost.” He smiles. “Llewellyn… it’s late. Stay?”

He feels drained, by the emotions of the evening, he doesn’t know he could summon up much libido. But he doesn’t want to spend the night alone. He never does. And he already has Llewellyn _here_ , and wouldn’t they both sleep so much better in the same bed?

“I’ll have to slip out early.” Llewellyn smiles back-- which dashes any hopes of making love in the morning, but he can’t find he minds it. Not if he can just hold him now. “I’m temporarily an important man. But… yes.”

“Well, my temporarily important man. Wake me early, then.” Jack laughs, and pulls him a little closer to the bed. Once they reach it, they separate. 

Neither of them really mentions a plan, for the night. They seem on the same page, as they undress separately. Jack drifts to his dresser for pajamas, puts a pair of bottoms in Llewellyn’s hand and lingers on him with a warm look. He slips into the top half, and long underwear in lieu of the bottoms.

“I’ll do it.” Llewellyn stops him moving to the fireplace once he’s changed. “Go on, get ready for bed.”

“You don’t need to, I can.”

“Mm. I know.” He rests his hands at Jack’s waist, kissing his cheek. “But I have it tonight. Let me?”

“All right. If you insist.” Jack returns the kiss. “I’ll leave keeping your home warm to you. And I’ll wash up before bed.”

He leaves the door open a crack-- Llewellyn joins him after the fire is lit, to go through his own evening routine. 

Finally, they settle heavy into bed, Llewellyn’s chest warm beneath his cheek, the gentle tangling of their limbs… 

“Are you warm enough without a shirt?”

“Under you? Always, you’re like a furnace.” Llewellyn presses a kiss to his hair. “I’m warm enough sleeping naked under you, some nights.”

Jack chuckles, tugging the neck of his undershirt lower so that he can toy with his chest hair. A little coarse and a little silky, just thick enough… just thick enough to stroke through, just thick enough to say ‘this is a _Man_ ’, with a capital M. A man with appetites, a man with strength. A man with… Well, in Llewellyn’s case, thighs with steel cable muscle, and great big hands, and definitely with appetites, for food and drink and sex, and for fresh open air, a man at peace in the wild, who likes to move. Who stills for Jack, sometimes, for quiet evenings at home with him, but whose natural inclination is to roam, to run, to live fully in nature. 

When the weather is warm enough for it, he’ll see him there. It won’t be Muir’s California, no, but it will be… sweet, and pleasant, to see him in his element, to taste the air together. The deep woods, or the seaside, or both. To spread out a blanket beneath the stars and build a fire together and live free a little while, together. 

To forget the world they live in, just him and his man, his _Man_. 

To strip naked, feel the sun on their skin, splash through the water and dig their toes in the grass… to experience a better world, one of their making and their curation, no one around to tell them they’re wrong. Just time to spend on each other, just space around them… Just Llewellyn, his own sweet Llewellyn, to hold him close like this, to love and be loved by. Jack’s libido might be taking the evening off, but he’s very much capable of looking forward to the future. He knows what he’ll want. He knows what will drive him wild.

“Mm. Mister Walker, please control yourself.” Llewellyn groans, sleepy-- sleepy, but teasing. ‘Mister Walker’ is always a particular sort of teasing, nowadays. “You’re going to make it very difficult for me to get to sleep. If you’re going to be pawing at me all night...”

“You can arrest me. For molesting a police officer. Take me in, Detective, I’ve made my bed and now I have to lie in it.”

“Can’t. Left the handcuffs at work. Besides… then I’d have to write up a report about how much I liked it.”

Handcuffs… that would actually be new. Jack supposes he wouldn’t mind it-- it’s not like Llewellyn’s ever put him in handcuffs, professionally. He went to some lengths not to, in fact. It would be very different, from his previous experiences with being arrested. It… even if they played at it, it wouldn’t be like that. And Jack knows there are plenty of men-- of all proclivities, he’s sure-- who enjoy that. There are clubs that some go to, which are less about chatting openly and having places to make social connections, and being free to dance with or kiss other men, and more about things which are done in the dark, with handcuffs and rope, and with… other things, which he doesn’t have so much stomach for. But he could stomach handcuffs, if Llewellyn wanted to.

True, whenever they pull out the teasing use of ‘Mister Walker’ and ‘Detective Watts’, it’s… different. It puts Llewellyn into a position of power, even if it is only joking-- not like… well, everything else that they do, and the way Llewellyn cedes control so willingly to Jack. He’d thought… he’d thought it was important. He’d thought it was natural for Llewellyn to allow him control because of his experience, and that it was important to have a little something, a little teasing or a little fun, that would remind Llewellyn that he was… Jack’s not sure, exactly. That if they were going to play games around power and control, he could take a little, too. He could flex a bit of muscle, and he could tease Jack, fluster him. To reassure him that he was welcome to, that Jack would enjoy him that way, too.

Llewellyn is very capable of flustering him, as it happens, and he can’t help but be attracted to Llewellyn-the-detective, the man who had rescued him from a charge too serious to beat alone, who had put faith in him, and protected him, and been kind and determined… He can’t help but be attracted to the tiger who escorts him home at night, to the hair on his chest, his arms, his legs, between them, to his muscle, his height, the span of his hands. But… he likes control.

He likes control too much. It’s always been one of his faults. Perhaps it’s his kicking out at a world in which he has precious little, over the things which matter most. Over losses borne too young and laws which force him into the shadows. It’s not only a fault, of course-- he supposes he has his desire for control to thank for his success, it drove him to go into business for himself and his business has been good to him. But it has not always done him favors, socially. 

And he likes controlling Llewellyn, and he knows he oughtn’t, not so much. A man likes to be in control of his own life… a man as independent and as free as that, especially. And yet… and yet doesn’t he put himself in Jack’s hands so readily? Doesn’t he go so sweet, and lay his head upon Jack’s knee, and allow him to command him as he pleases? 

Wouldn’t it be fair, to allow him his turn, at control?

“Well… next time don’t leave them at work, then.” He laughs, and he settles more firmly in, and he resolves himself to say yes, if Llewellyn does bring them home, does ask him. He shall trust him, he does trust him, with his whole heart. “For now, I guess I’ll just have to behave and let you sleep.”

Only, Llewellyn does not. His breath does not even, his heart hammers. 

“Lamb?” He frowns, and kisses Llewellyn’s nose-- and wonders, briefly, if he ought to have addressed him any other way, this time. If he keeps him sweet too much, with pet names. He has certainly never withheld any sweetness from him, but has he offered too much in exchange for an obedient lamb? Have they played this game, whatever it is, more than they ought? “You’re thinking too loud. Something wrong?”

“No. Yes. But… it’s not-- I don’t know how to explain it.” Llewellyn says, his brow furrowed and his eyes on the ceiling. Perhaps… perhaps their worries take similar routes.

“All right.” He lets his fingers trail gently over Llewellyn’s cheek, before he lays his own back over his breast, over the thudding of his heart. “You can talk to me, if you need to. I’m not asleep yet.”

After only a moment, he hums, to show he’s heard, but he says nothing else, and his posture doesn’t relax into restfulness. Has he done wrong by him? He does not think he has been demanding, and he certainly has not been cool to him, not ever. He has done well on the whole-- he has never let his temper get the better of him, he has never made his lover subject to his anger. He has never overindulged in drink to the point of melancholy or rashness, to spoil an evening. He has been thoughtful of him, he has tried always to be thoughtful of him. He has coaxed him to be obedient at times, and fussed over doing things for him, which he might have done for himself, but has he been wrong to? Has he robbed him of something he ought not have?

“Love you.” He murmurs, his own heart heavy with the worry he’d somehow upset a delicate balance, somehow misunderstood a need… or blinded himself to a difference in them, seen his own need for a mutual one when it was not. And Llewellyn, without the experience to know. But Jack ought to have known-- he’s been in Llewellyn’s position. He’s given himself to a more experienced lover, given up the control dear to him in hopes of being loved.

“I love you.” Llewellyn echoes readily, holds him. “Jack? I-- You didn’t… _mean_ that you wanted me to… bring handcuffs… here?”

“No, not really.” He says. It wouldn’t please him… but it wouldn’t displease him, he doesn’t think.

“Okay.” Llewellyn’s voice is soft, anxious yet.

“We could if you wanted to.” He promises.

“If I wanted to… bring them home.” Llewellyn’s tone is careful. Uncertain. Of course he’s uncertain-- this is something else no one has introduced him to. Of course he might have learned any way other than personal experience, through talk or through… through having had to raid some brothel or other and seeing the thing in action. But it sounds more now as if he hadn’t, as if this is a brand new horizon.

“If you wanted to put me in them.” He clarifies, and kisses Llewellyn’s breast, and hopes this will ease the thudding heart beneath his lips-- hopes that this promise, freely and easily and happily made, will make up for his vice. Or at least, it will show he is ready to make up for it, and to cede control when asked, and to be sweet and obedient also, to be fair with him. “I wouldn’t mind.”

But Llewellyn’s arms tighten around him like a vise at the offer, anxiety coursing through them, through the whole of his body, he shudders and holds tight and breathes in sharp.

“ _No_. I-- I don’t. I don’t… want you to-- I don’t want to see you like that. Or-- do that to you. It would be… different, from joking about it.”

Then… whatever measure of control he might want, he doesn’t want it like this. Or perhaps Jack has worried over nothing at all-- perhaps he has not been a tyrant, perhaps he has been exactly what Llewellyn has needed. Someone to take control in order to allow him to unbuckle his armor and shake off its heavy weight… someone to be on guard for him, to give him direction not because it is Jack’s own vice to desire control over him, but because after a long day exerting both body and mind, Llewellyn needs a man to care for him, to offer him a kind rest. To let him lay down his troubles knowing he will be loved.

“All right.” Jack kisses him again, tugging a little at his undershirt-- worrying it between his fingers as he does-- that he might press his lips to bare skin and not the fabric. And worrying it after, also. “That suits me fine, honest. I was only teasing. Or-- if you would rather… we could do it the other way around.”

“I don’t.” Llewellyn’s answer comes too fast, too nervous, and Jack feels a pang of regret for having suggested. Hadn’t he told him once, that he’d been on the other side of the table before, in that room?

“Right. You’ve… you’ve also been…”

“It’s-- not to do with the time I was under suspicion. It’s not important now. I just…” He gulps down air. “Don’t want to.”

“That’s _fine_ , beloved.” Jack promises, cuddling down against him until he feels the circle of his arms just begin to relax. “It’s not something I wanted. I’d have been willing, if you did, but it’s… I just like teasing you sometimes, that’s all. It doesn’t have to mean much.”

"All right. Okay. That’s… good. I-- I love you. I’m sorry, I’m overthinking this.” He shakes his head. Well, that would make two of them… there’s something comforting in that. He likes the thought that their thoughts have been over-spinning in concert.

“I love you. And now… you’ve thought about it enough. Time to let go, time to sleep. I won’t ask you to-- if I ever mention it again, or if anyone else does, about us, now you know… it’s just teasing.” He soothes-- his own worries alongside his lamb’s. Time for both of them to get some sleep… to be able to wake early. To be able to breakfast, before Llewellyn has to go in to work, a temporarily important man to the constabulary as a whole. A permanently important man to Jack.

He soothes Llewellyn down into a peaceful slumber, and his hand stills in its gentle petting as he follows soon after. He dreams about wild, green places, and he dreams about running free, with his man, his tiger, his lamb.


End file.
